'Two Nights Near Doolin' at Ives

Updated 11:12 pm, Friday, July 11, 2014

DANBURY -- An assignment to find an Irish story to air as a movie of the week ultimately led to the creation of an original play to be staged this weekend at Ives Concert Park on the Westside Campus of Western Connecticut State University.

"In the early 1980s, I was given an assignment by my producer to find an Irish story for American television," she said. "It was the height of `The Troubles' -- the bloody civil war in the North. I witnessed several tragic events, and many innocents were caught in the crossfire. This folded into a story that I heard while a graduate student at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1990 about an American who went in search of his family history.

"The play's setting came about in the mid-'90s when I was invited to read my paper at the First International Conference on the Irish Diaspora at the University of Cork," Burns-Bisogno said.

"While there, I attended my own `Clancy Clan's annual meeting.' On my way from that event to Cork, I stopped by a little village called Doolin. Located near the famous Cliffs of Moher, Doolin was the center of Irish traditional music and is now a major tourist site. Back then however, musicians would just come down from the hills and `jam.' It was a fabulous experience and I have been there several times."

The resulting play, "Two Nights Near Doolin," will be staged at Ives Concert Park, 43 Lake Ave. Extension in Danbury, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, July 11 -- 13. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students, plus ticketing fees. A ticket four-pack is available for $40, plus fees. Before the curtain rises on each 8 p.m. performance, there will be traditional Irish dance and music for 30 minutes to fully transport the audience to a pub near Doolin.

Pam McDaniel, a WCSU professor of theater arts, will direct "Doolin." McDaniel brings her own Irish travels to the staging of Burns-Bisogno's play. She spent 10 days there last summer conducting research she believes will add to the authenticity of the performances.

"I went to Ireland on a research grant to attend the Galway Arts Festival and also to spend time in and near Doolin to see the people and places the play is about," McDaniel said. "I interviewed people in pubs about the local tradition of passing musical skills down from one generation to the next, and I heard traditional musicians play. I met families who had operated pubs for six generations and found a prototype for the pub that is the setting for our play."